Mizuko Jizo Statues

At Tagesan Fudoson (多気不動尊).

This is a Wordless Wednesday entry.

Time To Say Goodbye To Dolls

Since 1998, Tagesan Fudoson (多気不動尊)/Tagesan Jihouin Fudoson (多気山持宝院不動尊) of Shingon school (真言宗) Buddhist temple has been holding a ritual ceremony around mid February for old dolls that the owners decided not to keep at home anymore. It is an annual ceremony during which the temple treats the dolls as human beings when dead - by cremating them.

This was my first time to photograph this event, my positioning was bad and the best shooting position was completely taken by a bunch of old dudes with fancy DSLRs with expensive lenses.

The ceremony started off with the Buddhist monks chanting. Then gasoline was used to start a fire. It took less than 10 minutes of that for more than 100 fancy dolls to turn in ashes...
 
By the way, the most exciting event organized by the temple is a fire walking ceremony every May. We are planning to attend it this year. Photos of last year's ceremony are below. Click photos to enlarge.

This is Our World Tuesday Week 26 entry.

Two Baldies

From the archive, the photo was taken in Nikko city.

Have a wonderful weekend.

A Snail?

When I was rambling through the Utsunomiya downtown, one anonymous building caught my eyes. My first thought was that this metallic snail-looking thingy was a ladder. But I was wrong!

When I got closer to it, "organic" smell got stronger (Thank God that it was winter). This metal object adjacent to the building turned out to be a long and spiral slide to the trash bin! How intelligent, or let's say, lazy the designer of this building was!


This is a Outdoor Wednesday #160 and Sky Watch Friday entry.